As Lia stepped into the room, she felt a bit underwhelmed. Considering that the room had two beds, two desks, and two wardrobes, it wasn’t much larger than her room on Eo. But it was new, and very, very clean. Orphelia was smiling as she introduced Lia to the amenities of their abode. “And here, we have our own bath,” she exclaimed and opened a door at the end of the room. The bathroom looked clean, modern and, Lia had to admit, was really the height of luxury.

“Then the window,” Orphelia said as she pointed at the wall that held an old looking window, “is also an HTV.” Lia stared for a moment out onto the peaceful meadow that was on the other side. Orphelia turned to it as well, and demanded in a loud and clear voice “Show the news.”

The picture of the green hills with its blue sky disappeared. Even the whole window disappeared, leaving a smooth wall for just a moment, then a lady appeared in front of them, glowing slightly. Behind her, on the wall, was the picture of a middle-aged man with dark blue eyes. Now that picture was in a modern metallic frame. “Amir Saggitarius, brother to the queen, has announced that he contests the leadership of the empire,” the lady announced. While she kept telling the news, Orphelia suddenly stared at the picture of the one that was presumably the queen’s brother.

“Fifteen years ago, Amir was excluded from the line of succession, as he was lacking his own pool of mana,” she heard the announcer say, as she looked to her roommate.

“What is it?” Lia asked, after Orphelia kept staring a long time at the man. The girl didn’t even seem to notice that she was scratching her left hand.

“I ... I think I’ve seen him before.” The answer came in a whisper, then her roommate shook her head and laughed. “Impossible though,” she continued in a conversational tone. “That was probably someone that simply looked exactly like him. There is no way the queen’s brother would visit our humble moon, right?” She grinned, then waved her hand. “End Program.”

The announcer vanished and the a moment later a bright window was on the wall once more. In the same style, with the same meadow, the same blue, cloudless weather. “Anyways,” Orphelia said and sat down on the left of the two beds. “What are your colors?”

“My colors?”

“Yes, your mana pools,” the green haired girl smiled from ear to ear as if she knew something Lia didn’t know. “I have Air, Water, Life, and Light,” she announced, ticking each one off with one of her fingers. She also sounded very, very proud.

“Ah, right. I have ...” what were the ones again? After all this talk about her having all ten, including the rare one of time, Lia had forgotten the four the principal had told her she should have officially. “Fire, Earth, Moon and Dark,” she answered. She almost whispered her answer and didn’t quite look at the other girl. Then an “I think” followed, and she felt her cheeks redden, her face flush with heat.

“You think?” the other girl asked. Lia’s eyes looked up, and she saw a mischievous smile appear on the lips of her roommate. “So … you are the other rare case that also has four colors. Congratulations!” She pronounced the number four as if it was overly important.

Lia tried to smile, but it somehow felt fake. She was really bad at keeping secrets. But she had to-

“Meaning you have more than four,” Orphelia clarified, getting back on her feet and leaning in. Her face was suddenly uncomfortably close to Lia’s.

“W... why would you think that?” That was a weak deflection, she admonished herself.

“Because both the principal and that Ludwig person acted very suspicious,” her roommate answered and sat back on the bed. With her hands behind her, she leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “You know, they ordered me to keep my … full house a secret as well,” she whispered. “And then they gave me the four I told you. Though I apparently have a better memory.”

“Wait.” Lia stared at the green haired girl for a moment. “Wait, wait, wait. Does that mean ... ?”

“It does”, she confirmed. Although Orphelia was smiling, that smile somehow didn’t seem to reach her eyes. In fact, Lia thought that she detected a hint of sadness in her irises.

“Even though it makes us somewhat special, even in the lower caste of donars, we still can’t wield the magic ourselves.” Orphelia sighed. Then she began to idly rub the palm of her left. Again. Maybe it was a habit, when she was nervous?

“I... I don’t really know how to feel about that,” Lia sort-of agreed with her, then turned around to sit on her own bed. Her bag of clothes was sitting on the floor a short ways away from her.

“It’s like getting a consolidation prize,” Orphelia said and looked out the artificial window. “It feels wrong, somehow.” Then she suddenly began to scratch her left hand in earnest. That she wasn’t drawing blood was probably from the callouses. “Argh. This is so annoying!” she complained. “Does your hand itch, too?”

“No,” Lia looked at her own hand. Although the field work had left some callouses as well, it didn’t feel any different than before. “But I don’t think you should scratch so hard.”

“Easy for you to say, when you’re not itching,” Orphelia shot back, then sighed. She held the wrist of her left hand in her right, clearly fighting against the urge to keep scratching. “Maybe it’ll vanish with a hot shower,” the girl concluded, then got up and started to undress. “You should take a shower, too. The academy has provided us with school uniforms as well as night clothes.”

Lia looked at the half-undressed girl with wide eyes. “We get clothes?”

“Yes, though they’re probably marked to show what we are,” Orphelia said, pulling her shirt over her head. “Of course they’d want to see at one glance, whether we are a donar or not.”

Lia shrugged, though her roommate didn’t see the gesture. Instead she took the time to walk to her wardrobe and opened it up. There really was everything she needed: Underwear, Shirts, the Academy robes, socks, even shoes. She reached out to touch the robes and shivered. The fabric felt so very smooth on her skin. It had to be illegal for clothing to feel this comfortable. She lifted it to her cheek and rubbed it against her face, smiling in bliss.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

After a moment, she stopped. Noticing what she had done, she felt her face burn and quickly closed the wardrobe. She felt lucky that Orphelia hadn’t seen her like that. Instead she turned to her bag, and then slowly opened the wardrobe again. There was very little space to put her own clothing. It took her some time to rearrange the interior to fit her shoes and spare clothing, then she sat back down on her bed. Even the sheets and the mattress were very, very comfortable. She almost gave in to the temptation to lie down and bathe in the sheets, as it occurred to her, that she should shower first. It was probably a bad idea to sit on the nice bedding with her dirty clothes. Lia quickly got back up and walked over to the window again.

“Show the news,” she demanded from it, as Orphelia had done before. She witnessed the window and the calm meadow vanishing, only to be replaced by the announcer lady again. She reiterated what she had said before, the news about the queen’s brother wanting his turn at ruling the empire.

“Amir Saggitarius invited many high ranking officials to demonstrate his abilities,” the woman continued the news where Orphelia had cut her off before. “According to the spokesperson of Mr. Saggitarius, the exiled prince now has access to more mana pools than even the queen herself.”

“Doesn’t that mean,” she asked herself in a whisper, “that the queen and her brother are … both Impera and Donar?”

There was no answer, and yet, it was the only thing that made sense. Lia had seen the queen use magic in a broadcast years ago. It was what had sparked her interest in the mystic arts. But all she had to go on, had been novels. It was as if any factual use of magic had been so mundane, that no one had been interested in it. Except her. And now she knew that she had a lot to learn.

“In other news,” the lady said, and the picture of the exiled prince vanished. In the frame was now a depiction of the space station itself. “Several traders en route to the Crystal Citadel have reported pirate attacks. So far, only cargo has been lost, but the government promised to take decisive action.”

Lia turned away from the images and sighed. She felt exhausted all of a sudden, her gaze fell on the bed, and she yearned to simply lie down, but she knew that she’d fall asleep as soon as she did. At least she didn’t had to wait long for Orphelia to leave the bathroom.

The news lady was still talking, and she overheard her saying that “Voyager 17 will arrive at its destination within the week.” Lia had learned in school about it: A project that had been started before she had been born. It probably was even bigger news than the prince wanting to rule or pirates attacking ships. And yet, it hadn’t much to do with her. She waved the HTV off and headed off to the shower. The hot water was refreshing, and she could have stayed there for a long period of time. She smiled as she stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. The exhaustion quickly grasped her again, so she hurried to get into her night clothes and laid down on the bed. Orphelia was already asleep, so she whispered a “good night”, and pulled the sheets over her head. It didn’t take her more than five minutes to drift off to sleep.

***

There was a vast open space around her. She stood on a glass platform in front of a huge double door. Stars twinkled in the sky above, and stars twinkled in the space below her. She felt as if she had come a long way to get to this place, she remembered a corridor made of glass, and more and more stars.

It was eerily silent. Nothing seemed to move, and yet everything was in constant motion. She turned around to the great door, made of glass, or crystal, or something. She couldn’t see the other side through its milky texture, but she felt as if there was something there. Something that called out to her. Something she was supposed to have.

She walked up to the door and pressed her hand against the cold, smooth surface. It felt foreign, as if someone hat put it there to bar her way. So, she pushed against it. Slightly, at first, then stronger, and stronger.

It didn’t budge. She could as well have pushed against a mountain. Or a moon, even a planet. There was no way she could move those.

Dejected, she turned around and sat down. She leaned her back against the door and stared up into space. There, far away, and between the soft shining stars, she saw nine glowing orbs. One red, one dark blue. Yellow, green, white, purple, gray, brown, and a light blue one. She almost hadn’t noticed the tenth one, a dark orb. She only recognized that it was there because of the absence of the starlight. Still she felt as if that one was glowing, too.

“Are you ... my magic?” she asked as she stared at the orbs. The answer was only more silence. She wasn’t even sure if she had produced any sound. She leaned back against the door and closed her eyes. “Do I need to open this gate, in order to use my magic?” She asked the orbs, she asked herself. There was still no answer. Maybe she could figure this place out when she learned more about magic? At least she was in a beautiful, relaxing space. Smiling she looked below herself. Maybe she could see some constellations in the stars? The glass floor reflected a ghostly image of herself back at her, but she could also see the stars on the other side.

Then she suddenly noticed something else. Something that wasn’t her reflection, but something … no someone standing there. It was as if the thin glass plane was the ground for her as well as the other girl. A girl with green, glowing hair, clothed in the black academy robes stood in front of a similar door on the other side. Lia could see her push against it. The other door opened slightly.

Lia could see something move on the other side. Wisps of black smoke rose away from her. They reached out, like a living shadow. It was as if the girl couldn’t even see the blackness that oozed onto the glass from the other side. It moved across the ground, slithering like a snake. It moved around the girl’s feet, caressing them. It seemed to look around, and then it looked down. It was directly below Lia. Looking at her. It opened its mouth and hissed. Then it hit the glass. Lia could feel the impact, hear the noise –

***

Lia threw her covers aside and gasped for air. She wanted to flee from this place before she remembered that she was safe. That that had just been a dream. She felt her forehead. She was sweating. What was that dream? Had it been a warning? Not to open that door? Not to embrace magic? Or was she afraid of using magic, after what had happened with Ludwig? Maybe she was afraid that it was this … uncontrollable beast. But she was here to learn. To tame that beast, to control it. There were so many mages out there, it had to be possible! She pulled the sheets closer to her body and took a few deep breaths.

Orphelia was sleeping soundly. Now that the bright sunlit scape had vanished from the window, a moonlit field displayed in it’s stead, she could see the strands of her roommate’s hair glow softly. For a moment she wondered whether Orphelia had abused that to read in bed at night, but then she remembered that the girl she had dreamed about … had looked very, very similar to her roommate.

Was that … a warning? Or just an intuitive display that Orphelia had already tamed her magic? She sighed and shook her head. There was no use in putting too much stock into dreams. Dreams were often so vague that only very few people thought that they meant anything. And if this one did mean anything, then maybe it was just her anxiety acting up. Or she had to be on the lookout for pirates or something like that.

That thought made her smile. She was getting silly and her nervousness had acted up in her dreams. Too much had happened this day and she needed sleep. Lia laid back down and closed her eyes. Sleep took a long time coming this time around, like a scared beast that first checked whether it was safe to return, but it finally settled down and the darkness took her in once more.